I
watched Ode to My
Father
for the first time at home yesterday when I saw that it was on VOD.
Before having watched it, I refused to read any review or plot
summary of the movie. I read the first paragraph of a review once
accidentally, where I learned that some have described the movie as
Korea's version ofForrest
Gump.
Anyway, I was very grateful that I watched it at home because for
most of the movie's running time, I was either on the verge of tears
or I was actually bawling. The movie unashamedly uses cranked-up
melodrama and string-heavy musical scores to squeeze as many
teardrops as possible from its viewers.

Let's
back up a bit and breeze through the plot. The movie starts with the
Hungnam
Evacuation.
The Yoon family, like countless other families, are fleeing North
Korea. In a dramatic scene when the family climbs up a rope net to
board a ship that would take them away from North Korea, the story's
protagonist, a young boy named Deok-soo loses his younger sister whom
he was carrying on his back. His father gets off the ship to find his
daughter but not before telling his son that Deok-soo will have to be
the head of the family until he comes back. He tells Deok-soo to go
to his aunt's house in South Korea where she is running a shop and
that he would meet them there later.

After
arriving at his aunt's house/shop, Deok-soo keeps the promise that he
made to his father and assumes the role of the family's breadwinner.
When he grows up, Deok-soo (played by Hwang
Jung-min)
heads to West Germany to work in a coal mine in order to pay for his
younger brother's college tuition. While in West Germany, he meets
his future wife, Young-ja (played by Kim
Yun-jin).
A few years later, Deok-soo heads over to South Vietnam to work as a
private contractor (it is never specified what kind of work he does)
during the Vietnam War in order to pay for his younger sister's
wedding (a different sister) and in order to buy his aunt's shop from
her drunkard husband – the same shop that Deok-soo's father told
him to wait for him at.

The
movie then fast forwards to the present-day when an aged Deok-soo (in
rather unconvincing makeup) who is now in his twilight years tells
his wife that perhaps the time had come to sell his shop, the same
one that he and his family fled to all those years ago. The movie
ends as Deok-soo wistfully says that his father probably won't be
able to come to see him at the shop now because he is too old.

One
of the things that I really appreciated about this movie is the
absence of foreign devils. In a movie that starts out with the Korean
War, it would have been easy to portray American soldiers as snarling
warmongers, as was the case in Welcome
to Dongmakgol.

Instead,
the movie showcases an American major general who chooses to dump
weapons and supplies into the sea so that there would be more room
for refugees to board the ship to safety. This unnamed
major general was actually based on Leonard
LaRue, the skipper of the SS
Meredith Victory, a United States Merchant Marine cargo
freighter.

In
a different scene, a German manager prevents Korean coal miners from
attempting to rescue their co-workers from a collapsed mine, not
because it is not worth saving those workers, but because it is
unsafe to do so. Of course, the miners refuse to heed the manager's
warning.

More
importantly, however, during a scene in present-day Korea when a
group of Korean juveniles hurl racist epithets at South Asian
immigrants living in Korea, the aged Deok-soo comes to their defense
as he knows just how difficult it is to live as a working class
immigrant in a foreign country.

I
spent the first twenty-eight years of my life as an immigrant in
foreign countries as well. I could not help but feel moved when I saw
that scene. Considering the fact that Korea
is one of the least welcoming countries to foreigners,
I thought that this was an important scene for all Koreans to see.

The
movie begins with a fluttering butterfly that flies around Seoul
before landing close to an aged Deok-soo. And the movie ends with the
butterfly fluttering away. It was clearly a homage to Forrest
Gump's
opening and closing scenes.

Also,
through several twists of fate that can only exist on the silver
screen, Deok-soo gets to meet several historically important Korean
figures such as Chung
Ju-yung,
Andre
Kim,
Lee
Man-ki,
and, Nam
Jin.

However,
this is where the similarities to Forrest
Gump
end. When it comes to addressing historical facts, though it was
certainly done in a lighthearted and comical manner, Forrest
Gump
did not shy away from America's darker past. For instance, the movie
does not try to brush aside the Ku Klux Klan, the immorality of
segregation, the hypocrisy of some in the anti-war movement, or the
drug abuse that existed within the counterculture movement. The movie
also did not shy away from the corrupt politicians of that era – in
particular Kennedy's philandering ways (or the fact that he and his
brother, Robert, were assassinated) and Nixon's Watergate scandal
(and his subsequent resignation).

It's
true that the movie does not pretend that life was happier under the
authoritarian regimes of the past. No one can watch the scene where
blackened and grimy Korean migrant workers toil away in coal mines
and then think that people's lives were being portrayed overly
idealistically. That being said, however, those are some pretty big
chunks of history to gloss over.

Before
Deok-soo leaves for Vietnam, his wife Young-ja angrily objects to his
decision. When Deok-soo tells his wife that he is obligated to head
to Vietnam to earn more money for the family because it's his role to
play as the eldest son, Young-ja asks him why he seems to be the only
one who seems to be making sacrifices. She tells him to stop living
for others and to live his own life. She asks him rhetorically why he
seems to be absent from his own life.

However,
as soon as she says that, the national anthem plays for the day's
flag-lowering ceremony and everyone has to stand at attention and
place their hands on their hearts while looking at their closest
flag. While the flag is lowered, a speaker plays the
Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag,
which states:

나는
자랑스런 태극기 앞에 조국과 민족의 무궁한 영광을
위하여 몸과 마음을 바쳐 충성을 다할 것을 굳게
다짐합니다.

It
translates to: “I pledge, in front of the proud Taegeukgi (the name of
the Korean flag), to devote my body and soul for the eternal glory of
our country and our people.”

Koreans
had to participate in a nationwide flag-raising ceremony twice every
day until the mid-1980s.

During
the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, as Deok-soo dutifully makes his
pledge, Young-ja refuses to stand until she notices a random stranger
glaring at her disapprovingly for her lack of patriotism.

Young-ja
then reluctantly stands up and also pledges her fealty to the flag,
the country, and her compatriots; thus answering her question as to
why Deok-soo cannot seem to stop living for others and start living
his own life.

In
part, this scene was reminiscent of Franz
Kafka's The
Metamorphosis,
whereby the protagonist, Gregor, slowly turns into a cockroach after
he has spent many years working at a job
that he hates because he feels obligated to pay off his father’s
debt and care for his family (although it turns out that his family
members are more than capable of taking care of themselves after it
is revealed that Gregor's mysterious and unexplained condition
prevents him from working).

Now
there is one word – a single word – which can blast the morality
of altruism out of existence and which it cannot withstand – the
word: “Why?” Why must man live for the sake of others? Why must
he be a sacrificial animal? Why is that the good? There is no earthly
reason for it – and, ladies and gentlemen, in the whole history of
philosophy no earthly reason has ever been given.

It
is only mysticism that can permit moralists to get away with it. It
was mysticism, the unearthly, the supernatural, the irrational that
has always been called upon to justify it – or, to be exact, to
escape the necessity of justification. One does not justify the
irrational, one just takes it on faith. What most moralists – and
few of their victims – realize is that reason and altruism are
incompatible.

This
brief scene encapsulated all the things that I detest about Koreans'
belief system – the collectivist nature of 우리(our
or us) – the subjugation of the individual to the group. It is the
morality that states that the only meaning and value that an
individual possesses is only insofar as he is able to serve the
collective; that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its
own interests.

It
is a poisonous philosophy that I learned to reject a long time ago, a
philosophy that I think that the Korean people have been marinated in
for far too long.

What
is absolutely true is that this philosophy has been part of the
Korean people's worldview for a very long time. It would have been
dishonest to pretend that it has never existed. And to be fair, I
think the director, Yoon
Je-kyoon, leaves just enough room to let viewers decide for
themselves whether living for others is the proper way to live one's
own life.

However,
what is also true is that all forms of art are selective recreations
of reality as perceived by the artist. It is the artist's way of
expressing his own metaphysical value-judgments. Yoon Je-kyoon does
his best to obfuscate his own personal views in this movie.

Regardless
of his view, taking the middle-of-the-road approach, especially in
regards to something as profoundly important as an entire people's
philosophical approach to life seems like it was more of a
disservice.

It
is my view that the Korean people need to have a soul-searching
discussion about what it means to live for others and to live for
oneself. Though there is no guarantee whatsoever that people on my
side of the debate will win, if this movie helps to nudge people
toward having that discussion, then I think the movie would have succeeded
in more ways than just box office returns.

I highly recommend this movie for those who are looking for a good cathartic release that can only come with crying. However, it isn't just tears. The movie manipulates your emotions by taking you on a roller coaster ride full of laughs and tears, even if the laugh is made uncomfortable by the fact that there is one scene that makes light of male rape.

If that is what you are looking for, this movie will deliver in spades.

However, if you are looking for something that is more historically accurate, or if you are looking for something that treats philosophy more seriously, this movie might not be for you.

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About Me

My name is John Lee and I am currently the editor and writer behind the independently-run blog, “The Korean Foreigner.”

Recently, I have also begun to work as a freelance copy editor for Freedom Factory. Here, with permission from Freedom Factory, I shall post English translations of Freedom Factory’s weekly newsletter “Freedom Voice.”